Influence of the Ore Mining and Processing Enterprise on soil types in adjoining areas

Abstract:

Anthropogenic influence on surroundings has induced anthropogenic or technogenic biogeochemical anomalies, where sharp a increase in the content of chemical elements has been established. Due to technogenic contamination, the amount of microelements in soils comes close to the level of macroelements that negatively affect plants, soil qualities and biota.
Appearance of technogenic biogeochemical anomalies depends on such activities as mining and manufacturing, exploitation of mines, metallurgical and chemical industries, which, through the air and sewage, contaminate soils, the atmosphere, storage pools, the vegetational cover and other components of nature. The extent of technogenic pollution depends on industrial capacities of contaminating enterprises, the time of their exploitation and the working effectiveness of purifying constructions.
Regions considerably contaminated with chemical elements have been found to cover the area within a radius of 10–15 km, whereas in the direction of the dominating winds it has even reached 20–30 km. The zone is referred to as a technologically vastly polluted area where dominating chemical contaminants in the soil threaten the entire soil biota as well as its agrophysical and agrochemical properties.
Our observations revealed that heavy metals from open-cast mines of the Ore Mining and Processing Enterprise were scattered by the prevailing winds throughout the environment within a radius of 8–12 km, and transferred, via irrigating waters, to agricultural arables dozens of kilometers away.